How do you depict your mages? Do you depict them as a typical white European male with long robes?

The more powerful the mage, the cuter and tinier it is

Now I say "it" because in my setting Mages are a genderless race of creatures. They start out growing and developing almost identically to humans, though they stop growing around about the age of 10, going without any magical talent until they reach "adulthood" which tends to occur around the 20th year of life, although early and late bloomers can sometimes occur

Upon reaching adulthood, they find the nearest tree and climb it, hanging from the strongest branch they can find and forming a cocoon around themselves seemingly made out of some form of soft fabric of varying colours, which have all sorts of symbols on them (A few mysteriously common sets of these symbols have become the swear words of the game world to the disgruntlement of the mage embassy)

Upon gestating inside this cocoon for a period of approximately 72 hours, they will come out of the formerly child sized cocoon as a fully grown, extremely buff and disgruntled looking male, with varying sizes of beard and eyebrow hair often but not always the same colour as their previous forms hair, but no hair on the top of their head. Their musculature can vary between bodybuilder and gay bear, but is always swole in some manner. This is the start of a mages "adulthood"

At first, they are often all but incapable of using the more standard magic as it tends to be represented, instead relying on muscle magic such as exploding punches, flex based auras and rituals, and the ability to expel toxic protein farts. As the years go they will undergo changes based on what abilities they use. Those who continue to hone their muscle magic will eventually go on to become the settings "Monks", but that's not what we're here to talk about

[Cont.]

The mages that choose to hone their more "traditional" magical gifts, often through acts such as lighting a candle, making baths bubble, cooling drinks and other far less impressive and muscular acts, will find that as their capabilities with these gifts improve, their bodies start to change

It starts of subtly at first, as does the improvement of their gifts. Their beards grows somewhat shorter, their muscles become less "veiny", their voices become slightly less gruff and pronounced, and grandma's sweater might start to fit again

As they continue practicing, these changes will continue. Their beards will get shorter and shorter, they will start to regain hair on their heads that will grow longer and longer. Their muscles will get smaller and their height will decrease. Their jawline and facial structure will soften, and at this point their hair may even begin going an unusual shade of colour, although this is uncommon

Eventually, around the time they'd be at the power level of a starting wizard in an average campain, they look less like a gruff barbaric superhuman and more like a slim, young, slightly effeminate man. Of course with the lack of muscles at this stage they're all but incapable of performing the muscle magic of their more physically inclined kin, but their more traditional magical gifts have finally become capable of, if not matching, at the very least filling in for those talents

Naturally, the mage at this point goes about honing their traditional magical gifts, finding that as those fireballs, cones of cold, and other abilities get stronger, they themselves get physically weaker, becoming shorter, softer looking, losing what muscle they had. They begin to look somewhat like they did as a child, although far more feminine in most cases, and with a wide range of always ridiculous hair colours. A adept mage is user's wet dream, as they have finally become the little girl.

[Cont.]

I'll be honest, I quite like the magic negro in the 5e PHB.

This is roughly the final point at which a mage could be mistaken by a stranger to be a human unless that stranger happens to be drunk, near sighted or under the influence of a magical malaise or the influence of drugs

As their abilities continue to hone, the body of the mage starts to become less natural in its appearance. Both hair and eye colour will change throughout the day at faster intervals as time goes on, they become softer looking, their eyes and head will grow larger and their bodies smaller, often relying on their now startlingly powerful magic to keep themselves upright, or hanging onto the nearest fighter, often while the fighter quivers in horror at the seemingly eldritch abomination ever changing on their back. This is commonly referred to as the "moe" stage and the majority of fully grown mages are often met at this stage, especially in their own communities

It doesn't stop there however. Should a mage continue into more forbidden schools of magic in an attempt to gain more power (Most mages stop at their moe form due to the difficulty of gaining the level of power necessary to go beyond that form), they will find themselves slowly entering a stage of developement commonly referred to as "moeblobbing". During this, as their powers become stronger their physcial forms are affected even more by their inhuman magical strength, becoming soft as a marshmallow and softer still as time goes on, their skin now changing colours, their hair and eyes already making them mobile seizure weapons. Speaking of their eyes, by this time those eyes have taken up roughly 70% of their head and rising. Most adventuring parties at this stage tend to "accidentally" get separated from the mage, although by this time the mages extreme power and almost alien thought processes tend to leave them in a state of not giving a fuck

[Cont.]

By this time the mage will be consumed by an all consuming desire to hone their power and gain more of it. As they continue on their physical form will deteriorate to the point of being more like a colourful slime, albeit one that shoots out bursts of powerful, magical energy at random intervals. Often times at this stage they're mistaken by less informed adventuring parties as a rare slime monster, which can result in absolute disaster as, if threatened at this stage, the mages natural instinct to defend itself can lead to tsunamis, magical explosions rivaling our strongest explosive ordinance, lava floes and fissures, among many other horrendous possibilities.

Luckily, at this point the mage tends to be heading away from civilisation. Eventually, upon collecting enough power, the now shapeless, glowing, colourful moving slime will find a strong tree, latch onto the side, and engage in chrysalis

Eventually, what comes out of this cocoon will be a small, glowing, vaguely human shaped mass of conscious magical energy, its colour often but not always indicative of the type of magic the mage specialized in before its transition into its final stage of life.

At this point, mages often choose isolation, sometimes going so far as to leave the very planet, in search of what many imagine to be more power, but none can say for sure.

There are, however, always exceptions, and those that somehow retain memories of their former life may choose to stay, sometimes returning to their places of birth and acting as both guardian and elder, some seeking out mage communities for kinship, some even seeking out their former, or even a brand new, adventuring party, seemingly out of a desire to see their former goals completed

These "Archmages", while often somewhat capable of communication, often still have somewhat alien though processes, and can be seen as similar to the fey from other settings

Did you read the parody of The Hobbit?

No, but do tell

No, I depict them as a hunky negro with a bone necklace carrying around a boombox blasting the theme from shaft.

What about Mongolian wizards?

Most prominent magician in my current setting is modelled off my memories of Agatha Heterodyne in term of look, back when she was still wearing vest and skirt. My most prominent witch is a regular-looking slav woman who wears a dress made of rats. Otherwise magic users look any way they want (Although setting being European is flavor, most of them are white, there's fantasy Africa-China hybrid, but they don't use magic like most people, they are sort of dwarven in spirit.

Then there's one specific brand of wizards, which are all bald albinos.

>That insanity

So when you thought of this were you high? Is this your magical realm? Are you just insane?

idk man but like wtf? I am impressed by your creativity

reddit

kek

I like to portray them as tragic but insightful with individualized spellcasting abilities. They're outcasts in their communities and don't have libraries full of tomes to reference, instead they discover some truth or another through painful circumstance that gives them their abilities.

Magic is defined by individualization and strength of will, so people who have magical abilities already had a role in fate or the grander scheme of things that they are just discovering, and usually it begins or ends in sacrifice. It isn't that they're casually powerful, they're burdened by their magic as well as gifted, and their powers are meant more to impart meaning on their life story than to actually empower them.

They can look and act like anything and some of them wear armor. You could never guess who is a mage and who isn't through observation.

Nope, not under the influence of anything, I've never been "into" anime girls and bodybuilders don't do it for me either, too impractical. Could be insane, doubt it though, since I'd have probably been sectioned if that's the case

And thanks, I wanted to take a fresh look at the idea of magic and how it could manifest

It's also worth mentioning that it's somewhat toned down from my original plan which was to have no swoleness involved, and simply have magic users become smaller, larger headed, and more in line with how a baby would look because their magical power comes from eldritch abominations outside of reality who then use mages as a way to influence our reality, and they become more babylike as a defensive mechanism because those beyond understand our instinct to protect babies, not quite getting how unsettling having a bunch of magically gifted giant glowing babies walking around is. Their final transformation at the end being them essentially turning into a mobile portal for the creature that chose that mage to less their essence through

Not sure if I used the spoiler tags correctly

Tell us about the muscle magic you mentioned

Ah, right, the muscle magic. Well, I wanted a reason to 1) Make martials in my setting more in line with Spellcasters in regards to their capabilties at all levels and 2) have two opposed factions of the same race. Then I thought about it and came to the conclusion: Nerds vs Jocks, Shmitty Bugenhaggen being given a hard time by Chad Thundercoque and his troupe of lads

Now magic in this setting is possessed within oneself, like a latent energy powering your body. The Mages, being a race that on adulthood undergoes a transformation during which their bodies seem to absorb a ridiculous amount of magical energy from an unknown source, come out of these cocoons with much more than a standard human of that age. And because magic is an energy that in its natural state empowers you physically, they come out looking fucking jacked

Now, this level of swole isn't just for show, and upon coming out these muscle wizards are capable of peak human feats matching their increased size and muscle mass. And of course, with magic essentially being their cardiovascular system in regards to the use of this strength, they're capable of doing a reasonable amount before becoming exhausted, and don't need to do something ridiculous like eat 80000 kcal a day to keep it up, as magic naturally replenishes from a, once again, unknown source

[Cont.]

Mages, as opposed to other magic-users? Users of high magic have a tendency to slowly become "Walking Ghosts", a byproduct of messing with the power of creation without the expertise of a god. The condition is also connected to why you don't eat the food or drink the water in the underworld, or any other world for that matter. The form deteriorates as it's replaced with something less "real".

It starts off looking like a rash, but eventually develops into full-blown necrosis. It tends to be lethal unless their skills match to compensate for their deterioration. There are also preventative measures and ways to avoid that fate, or even recover from it in the early stages, but it's one of the main risks of the profession and a large reason why most magic users prefer to stick with lower level works or contract other beings.

You probably don't want to click on the picture.

In me setting, the ones called mages are Persian/Babylonian men and women wise in the realms of magic

Either that, gypsies, or the occasional peasant shaman that knows a few cantrips.

LOL XD

>typical white European male with long robes?
gettaload of this faggot.reddit
also
>tipical
>european
like the celtic magi
slav magis
nigga please

Now, with the basis by which their bodies are empowered explained as clearly as I can right now, I'll move onto the feats of muscle magic they're capable of and how their bodies develop along with their capabilities

Now much like regular exercise, the use of their empowered physical capabilities will naturally make them stronger. They go from outrunning their human friends to keeping up with horses, from outlifting their friends to carrying cows, and as they use their abilities more and more their capabilities become more and more inhuman

Soon they find that if they focus, they can shoot a surge of nigh invisible air as they punch, flashstep with the right amount of concentration, and channel their growing magical energies via flexing to create auras of various capabilities such as regeneration, or even defensive barriers to protect from ranged attacks.

As this is going on, their bodies are changing. They're growing slightly in height, their eyebrows are getting thicker, their beards longer, their bodies tanner. Their muscles grow more and more defined, with what look like veins just filled with magical energies under the skin. No hair on the top though: Theres is a life of solemn baldness, the price of their swoleness and its transgression against the natural order of things

[Cont.]

Anyhow, this does lead to a common trend of wearing concealing clothing to hide their disfigurement, which does include long robes. Hoods and masks are also quite popular, but the general style tends to vary from culture to culture. Only a rare few actively flaunt their corpse-like features, with some taking pride in their ability to survive with it as a sign of their immortality. At this point, the mage has become something akin to a Lich. If it develops past that point, they become more purely a spirit, as their physical form fades and is replaced by magic.

So they carry on training. Their powered punches increase in strength, sometimes to the point where a punch thrown 15ft away can take a mans head clean off. They can leap to ridiculous heights and land without issue, often creating craters when they do so due to sheer muscle and bone density. They begin to passively generate the empowering auras they formerly had to concentrate and flex to activate, they can move faster than the naked eye could ever hope to keep up with. They end up more than a match for their less physically inclined kin, who by this stage can create small blizzards, huge fireballs, and acts of teleportation, among other feats.

Now, naturally this increasing pool of magic is having an effect on the mage. He's becoming cumbersomely large, but has no trouble moving due to his muscles being more than capable of supporting him. Armour by this stage is difficult to obtain, but with the pure magical energy emanating from their bodies they don't often need it. By the time a more traditionally inclined mage has reached the "Moe" stage, these physical dynamos would be hard to tell apart from The Hulk were it not for the now ridiculously large beards and eyebrows bushy enough to almost think they had hair on their bald, bald heads

[Cont.]

Now, for obvious reasons this tends to be more than enough for the average person, and they tend not to get past this point. But as with their nerdboi kin, there are ofcourse some who decide this isn't enough. That they are still far to in control of their swole for their liking. And they carry on training, having to leave civilization much like their moeblob kin in order to do so.

As they train, rather than becoming bigger, their bodies start to decrease in size. Their muscles, though as terrifyingly defined as before, become smaller, their height decreases, they start to look more and more human as their power increases. What does continue to grow however is their beard, which along with an increase in bushiness, will begin to crackle with raw energy, often being used by the muscle wizard as an extra weapon in their arsenal, as with their training has come an amazing level of control over such energies, allowing them to turn their beard into a shield, a spear, armour or even an extra fist, with the capabilities limited only by your imagination and the size of your beard

Eventually, you reach the size of a large man, down from the colossus you once were. Your whole body hums with energy. You glow with light, your beard now long enough to house animals, if they weren't immediately dissipated by the sheer energy contained within

As they reach this point, they find a large rock to sit on, and allow the beard to envelop them. For 3 days they will sit, absorbing the energy held in their beard into their core, and on the third day, the beard will fall away to reveal a muscular, regular sized man, completely naked and hairless, made seemingly of pure muscular energy. These "Monks" are the physical pinnacle, their time absorbing the energy previously of parts unknown having given them clarity to the world and universe around them

Ebin

They summon horses and shoot magic arrows

This, Eccentricity is key. Even the most "normal" are eccentric in their normalness, in an OCD sort of fashion.